Σκακιστικά νέα

The strong finish of the Qualification League has found its logical continuation. League 4 of the Top Chess Engine Championship, with eight engines coming form QL and four seeded, is off to an interesting start.

The Asian Individual Chess Championship 2021 will take place 21-30 May.

87 players (21 GMs and 21 IMs) will fight for 8 qualification spots for the FIDE World Chess Cup 2021. Asian Continental Chess Championship 2021 will be played in a hybrid format, 9 rounds, swiss system.

Read more: Covid stricken India out as Asian Chess Championship is set to begin

The Asian Individual Chess Championship 2021 will take place 21-30 May. 87 players (21 GMs and 21 IMs) will fight for 8 qualification spots for the FIDE World Chess Cup 2021.

This time the qualification event for the World Cup will not feature any Indian participants. The Covid-19 crisis that is unfolding in the country has prevented the India Chess Federation to field any players.

The Azerbaijan Women’s Chess Championship 2021 kicks off tomorrow in Nakhchivan.

The event will be played in round-robin format with 11 rounds and 12 participants. Top seeded are IM Gulnar Mammadova, WGM Ulviyya Fataliyeva and WGM Zeinab Mamedjarova (4 times National Women’s Champion).

The American Qualification tournament for the FIDE World Cup 2021 will take place 22 May – 30 May. As an American Continental Championship, the event consists of two hybrid format stages: preliminary and knock-out.

The preliminary stage took place 7-9 May with participation of 107 players rated under 2500. Top ranked players qualified for the knock-out event open to all USA flagged players rated 2500 or higher.

The Azerbaijan Chess Championship 2021 took place on May 4-14 in Nakhchivan.

In a strong 12 players field, GM Vasif Durarbayli became National Champion for the first time in his chess career and also earned qualification for the World Chess Cup 2021.

FIDE Women’s World Cup 2021 will take place 10 July – 4 August 2021 in Sochi, Russia, simultaneously with the FIDE Open World Chess Cup.

The 2021 FIDE Women’s World Cup will be played in 7 rounds, knock-out system, with 103 players and a prize pool of 676,000 dollars. 
Most of the participants are already known with Canada (Zone 3.2) as the only remaining federation to run qualifiers in early June.

The European Individual Chess Championship 2021 will take place 26 August – 5 September in Reykjavik, Iceland. The event will be held in a historic venue at Hotel Natura.

FTX Crypto Chess Cup 2021 is going to start this week. The Meltwater Champions Chess Tour delivers a world first for its next event – an elite-level bitcoin chess tournament. The star-studded FTX Crypto Cup offers a record prize pot for an online tournament of $320,000 (variable, depending on the bitcoin current price)

FTX Crypto Cup live

FTX Crypto Cup will be live daily on Chessdom.com with live games and video commentary.

BBC World Service ran a video segment presenting the life of chess streamers and the recent explosion of interest in chess video broadcasts. BBC correctly taps into the shifting fortunes – nowadays young WGM/WIM/FM players are the avant-garde of chess. The reason: “Queen’s Gambit” by Netflix.

See: The Queens Gambit – with WIM Lara Janzelj and WIM Teja Vidic